She gave Beth a playful elbow in the ribs when she saw Reid. ‘If I were thirty years younger Beth, you and I would have a problem.’ She winked in...appreciation at Reid’s tall, bearded figure. Beth smiled indulgently at Candice’s comment and took the arm Reid proffered, helping her down from her stool and guiding the four of them to their assigned seats. The night passed fairly uneventfully. Their meals came out hot and tasty, apparently from some multi-award winning chef but Beth didn’t care,. I was finally concluding that she wasn’t a ghost or a hallucination since room service had spoken to her when they set the table. She looked pained.“I got scared,” she said. “That night that we went back to the house, I wanted you so much, it scared me. I dropped you off and I called my best friend from high school. She told me ... well, she gave me a lot of advice and some of it was good, but this was clearly the worst thing I could have done. She told me that we got too hot, too fast. She. We didn't find any more treasures, only a few Victorian copper coins, two of them very thick pennies and a shop token from under the living room carpet."I'll see if the baker's will take them," I laughed. It was nearly lunchtime and I volunteered to go while Jean finished stripping the paper from a wall.There was a short queue and while I waited I recognised Sarah Larkins as one of the two serving. She'd been in my class at high school but left at sixteen to go to work. Since I'd seen her last. Betty took Emma into Amelia’s study where she was lying on her back on a divan reading a manuscript wearing only her stockings. When she saw Emma, she jumped up with a spring and a smile and kissed Emma full on the mouth. ‘Come in! Come in!’ She said, leading Emma towards the divan. ‘And you, Betty, come over here!’ This was definitely more than Emma had hoped, as Amelia pushed Emma flat out on the divan and starting licking her body with her tongue. She directed her mouth towards Emma’s.